


Countercurrent

by foxdreams



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Angst and Feels, Basically what I wish would happen, But before Shibuya, Character Study, Dreams, Gen, Implied Soriku, Memories, Post-Canon, Surreal, hard discussions at the end of the world, kairi gets some agency as a treat, unbetated we die like men, unrequited love from kairi's side
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-17
Updated: 2020-06-17
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:14:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24778216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxdreams/pseuds/foxdreams
Summary: It’s funny. For all the times she’s imagined finally being alone with Sora, it’s never been like this. Now, in the moment, all she feels is dread, like she’s a fish herself, unwittingly hooked without a means to escape.(At the end of the world, Kairi turns back towards the shore.)
Relationships: Kairi & Sora (Kingdom Hearts)
Comments: 29
Kudos: 93





	Countercurrent

**Author's Note:**

> So how about that kh:MoM thing? Wild.

Kairi stares down her legs against the rotted whorls in the wood of the old dock. This is probably a memory, or a dream—because Sora looks younger than usual, his face too smooth and lacking scars and freckles born of too much sun, and she just looks...herself. Unchanged, unchanging. 

Mist kisses the surface where it fades out around them, a bubble of security in an unsure world. There’s just the dock, and the two of them, and the endless ocean for miles. 

Her bare feet trail the water, but there’s no feeling where there should be. The fish beneath them crowd close around their toes. Sora is to her left, leaning over the edge to watch the liquid silver slide of their scales. It’s a little crowded, because the dock is narrow and flimsy and they’re a lot bigger than they were as kids, fishing off the end.

It’s funny. For all the times she’s imagined finally being alone with Sora, it’s never been like  _ this _ . Now, in the moment, all she feels is dread, like she’s a fish herself, unwittingly hooked without a means to escape.

Her grandma had always said love was a choice to make with somebody, every day. To  _ choose _ them over anyone else, to be with them, to hold their happiness like a flame in your own heart.

This had never felt like a choice, for her. This had always felt inevitable, a constant, dragging weight on her ankle that kept her just two steps behind the other two. A role she was written into by unseen hands who never cared what it would do to her. 

(To all of them.)

This feels like chasing. Not in the way Riku and Sora chase each other, like a reflex, like muscle memory, races on the beach and something that didn’t need to be thought about. Action and release, cause and effect, Riku and Sora.

She had feared—if she reached out to him,  _ really _ , the way she wanted to—the delay in Sora’s response would kill her. Because of his honesty, because there was never any cruelty in that boy, but he had always been so cruel to her all the same.

But this is a dream, and dreams are for truth. 

“Hey, Sora,” she says. She’s picking at the bracelets on her arm, grounding herself by the feeling of cool shell between her fingers. This is something she never wanted to say, but all things being equal, if she doesn’t say it now—when will she?

He stops his exploration to look at her. “Yeah?”

There’s a pause while she scans his face—curiosity, and a simple happiness she feels bad about ruining. Nothing like what she’s wanted to see.

She turns away, out toward the horizon. It’s gray as far as she can see, but it’s comforting.

“You’re never going to choose me. Are you?”

There’s a moment she fears she’s gone over his head. Sora’s not the best at this, at catching double meanings and loaded conversations about feelings. That was Riku and Kairi’s purview, a careful Cold War forged between them over time and fortified on either side with bitter words and barbs that are only now beginning to fade, given distance and time.

“I mean over...this. Everyone who needs you. Throwing yourself into whatever comes up, over and over, like you’re trying to make sure this time is the last time.”

“Kairi…” he says, with that old apology in his voice, always so  _ kind _ . He’s never wanted to tell her  _ no _ , and right now it feels more patronizing than comforting. There’s a hesitant raise of his hand before he drops it, and his head follows, his eyes shrouded beneath his hair. “It’s not like...I mean, I can’t just...leave them. I have to  _ help _ . Like I had to save you.”

Her nails bite into her palm, then relax.

He seems to read her mind. “I was always gonna come back,” he says, quietly. “I thought that was what mattered.”

“It matters,” she says, firmly. “It’s just not the same way I chose you.”

He studies her, chewing at his lip. This is why she never wanted this answer, because all she wants to do is comfort  _ him  _ in his turmoil. She can’t afford to, if she wants to make this complete.

“Do you understand?”

She can tell he doesn’t, can tell from a lifetime of studying the exact cadence of his expressions. His eyes flick across her face like he’s trying to make sense of another language, like she’s speaking in another tongue entirely.

“S _ aving _ me isn’t enough if it doesn’t mean  _ choosing _ me once I’m safe,” she explains. 

His mouth forms a perfect, comical ‘o’, and for once, she’s divested him of words. Riku would have laughed, if he was here. If this was any other time.

She knows she’s asking the impossible. It doesn’t even matter if this is the real Sora or not, because she’s not sure she’s ever spoken to the real Sora. This was always how this was going to play out. She’s not sure which she would prefer, if she could take it back to bury this despair between the pages of unsent letters in the lockbox beneath her bed.

“You didn’t even realize you were doing it, did you?”

He shakes his head. “It’s not like that. I never…” 

“It’s okay,” She says. “I knew.” 

She’s known for a long time, since before the paopu and promises and charms.

She cuts him off before he can apologize, because the division between them is bone deep now, and she  _ knows. _ The fracture lines have been there, between all three of them, teetering, waiting for one of them to take a step. They’d been cowards for a long, long time.

He won’t understand this, like they’re standing on opposite sides of the sky; she will never be able to make him see what she sees, because all the feeling he has in him is reserved for someone else.

He’s still staring at her.

“I’m leaving,” she says. “This is as far as I go.”

“Kairi,” he says again, and pain lances his face. Sora doesn’t like to  _ lose _ people, once he has them, but he needs to lose  _ her _ for now. “I’m sorry, please—”

“ _ Sora _ ,” she says, and she finally takes his hand in hers. “Thank you for saving me all those times. But I’m  _ tired _ .”

“I’m tired, too,” Sora confesses. He probably is. She knows, the mantle of a hero is a heavy, lonely, thankless one. Especially one holding so many people together. “I don’t know...how to fix this.”

“There’s no  _ fixing _ ,” she tells him, and squeezes his hand, because she’s learned it the hard way. She can’t be who she wants to be to him, but she can guide him, just this one last time. “Just following your heart, wherever it goes.” She reaches out to tap his pendant. “ _ To _ whoever it goes. Right, So-ra?”

“That’s so…”

“Scary? Yeah. I know,” she says. “But...I believe in you. You’ll figure it out.”

“You’re right,” he says, with the first real smile she’s seen in forever. “Thanks, Kairi.”

“That’s my last free advice,” she warns, a little teasing. “The next one will cost you.”

“Fair enough,” he laughs, easy, and folds his hands behind his head. “I owe you for a lifetime anyway.” 

She shoves his shoulder, laughing. “And don’t you forget it!”

There’s a moment of peace, and she allows herself one more selfish minute of it before she destroys it.

“You have to leave, too,” she says. “He’s waiting for you.”

“Will you be?” he asks, voice small. “At the end?”

“No,” she says, making spirals into the water with her feet. “I won’t. Not anymore.”

She pauses, peeks at Sora’s pensive expression beneath the violent red of her bangs. She always liked that part of herself most. 

“But...you can find me, when you come back. If you want to.”

To her surprise, his face blossoms into a smile, relief etched all over him. “I can do that,” he says. “For sure.”

For the first time, she looks at the conversation in past tense, and sees another angle, a path to rebuilding. When this is over, when he feels nothing but the surprising lack of heart-rending pain where there should have been some, at her absence—then he will understand. 

Then, she’ll be ready to rebuild this. They all will.

She gets up. Her legs are stiff from sitting, and she’s shaky, but it feels so  _ good _ to be on her feet.

“Kairi,” he says. She glances down. “No reckless stunts,” he says, with a wink. “Okay?”

“No promises,” she says. She’s pretty much done with those, anyway.

“That’s the Kairi I know,” he says, with a crooked smile. She would have loved it, in the past, before it was worn thin at the edges. “But I can’t wait to meet the new one, too.”

“Neither can I,” she says, and realizes, with a start, that it’s true.

The dock creaks with her footsteps as she turns away, the wood rough against her heels as she follows it to the gentle rise of the sand.

At the edge of the world, she pauses. She allows herself one look back—one  _ long _ , difficult look at Sora alone on the little spit of land and the dock, still smiling at her, even as he sniffles—and turns away. 

She smiles too.

“Take care of each other,” she says, because she feels Riku’s eyes on her, beyond the edge of the veil. He gave them all the privacy he could, being a dream eater and all, and she’s grateful for that. “And choose him, every day, okay?” She tilts her head back, closing her eyes, breathing in, slow and deep. 

Seagulls call in the distance, and over that, the distant sounds of a city. If she reaches out, she can grab it.

“It’s not my job anymore.”

**Author's Note:**

> coun·ter·cur·rent / noun
> 
> a current flowing in an opposite direction to another.
> 
> \-----
> 
> Holler at me on twitter @dispositiongay


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